The present invention relates generally to web-based platforms and methods for facilitating content transactions between content providers and online users. More particularly, the present invention relates to a web site that facilitates interaction between content providers and potential users of the content, wherein content may be made collectively accessible upon the collection of value from users in excess of a predetermined threshold.
The current business model for digital content in general, and more particularly in the field of music, remains largely as it has existed for generations. Artists produce and release music. Then, the new releases go through as many sales channels as possible in order to reach the marketplace. The more contemporary “digital” sales channels such as for example iTunes, eMusic, CDBaby, etc., have added new means for reaching potential buyers but have not significantly changed the basic model.
On the other hand, what have changed are the behaviors of the final consumers of the music. Their approach has changed with time and technology. Peer-to-peer (“P2P”) platforms are generally regarded by many in the music community with skepticism or worse, either as a direct threat by facilitating file sharing and therefore “piracy,” or indirectly as an uncontrollable variable that disperses creative content solely for the benefit of the end users and without adequately compensating the artist, creator, owner, producer, etc. In a broader context, however, “sharing” may more pragmatically be seen as a paradigm for the ways in which users of the Internet interact with each other, whether to share a video, a song, a link or simply a thought of any kind no matter how small, and is not an activity particularly confined to the world of music.
Current attempts to incorporate the online music community into a business model involve simply providing qualitative music for the community to listen to, download and share for free, wherein the artists are likely to end up with more people who recognize their work. However, this type of promotion in and of itself fails to bring in revenue to compensate the artist. Further, the artist frequently does not receive significant benefit from the sales of CD's or MP3's which may follow such a promotion, given the costs of production and inequitable distributions of profits.